On July 4th, 2006, I embarked on a quest to become the pre-eminent American portrait painter of the 21st century. This blog chronicles that journey. With apologies to Joan Didion, I call it THE YEAR OF MAGICAL PAINTING.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Massa! Volume 2

Things didn't turn out exactly right. Felipe came in 4th. Rosberg, as predicted, came in first, which is good, followed by Hamilton, which is bad. But not as bad as Hamilton winning.

Hey! At least the US beat Portugal in the World Cup, which I never thought they'd do.

[fevered whispering]No way!Way.I turned it off at the 94 minute mark!Well, you missed the fireworks.Argghhh.

Actually, I saw the whole thing.

Note to Jürgen Klinsmann: I don't care if that dude Bradley's father used to be the coach, I want him off the team. Same problem as with Ghana -- passing the fucking ball to the guys in the other colored shirts. And this time, at the worst single moment one could possibly imagine.

I'm not asking for Ronaldo-level ball control skills. But in the closing seconds you should be able to execute basic soccer skills like trapping, dribbling and passing to somebody in the same colored shirt that you are wearing. When he turned the ball over for the final time he wasn't even under that much defensive pressure.

Very troubling. The good news is that we're in better shape heading into the final game than anyone predicted. The bad news is that one decent pass by Bradley and we'd have already claimed our spot in the round of 16.

Fun fact: Ronaldo is, amazingly, named in honor of Ronald Reagan. Which I can promise you, in addition to the fact that he's the Carmelo Anthony of soccer (all O, no D), makes me like him even less.